Barr's tone and actual voice is more annoying than even possibly trump's.

most of the career GOP shrills are, Trump is still the ridiculous salesman bullshitting at 110%, he's insufferable now because of how overtly nefarious his actions are as POTUS

for example locally Dan Patrick, TX lt. governor, is insufferable. the FOX commentators are just absurdly snide - Hannity in particular. I think one of the reasons Limbaugh is still so popular is because he's maintained an actual DJ / broadcaster air to veneer his bullshit. the others are just so goddamn douche-y

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saw headlines that "Iranian leader announces partial withdrawal from nuclear deal." looked into it and it's the result of what trump did!

Quote

Iran announced Wednesday it was partially withdrawing from a landmark nuclear deal, marking a serious escalation in Tehran's faceoff with the United States.

President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised speech that Iran would reduce its "commitments" to the deal, but would not fully withdraw, amid heightened pressure from the US in recent weeks.

Rouhani said that from this week, Iran will keep its excess enriched uranium and heavy water, rather than sell it to other countries as previously agreed to limit its stockpile.

The President said drastic measures would be implemented unless the remaining signatories of the deal -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- eased restrictions on Iran's banking and oil sectors in the next 60 days.

The measures include removing caps on uranium enrichment levels, and resuming work on its Arak nuclear facility.

The move comes a year after the US unilaterally withdrew from the deal, over the stringent objections of other signatories.

Rouhani accused "hardliners" in the US of working to undermine the deal, saying it was "in the interests of the region and the world, but not the enemies of Iran, therefore they spared no effort since 2015 to undermine (the deal)."

Under the agreement, Iran was permitted to stockpile limited amounts enriched uranium and heavy water produced in that process, exporting any excess. Doing so has become extremely difficult after the US revoked waivers that allowed Iran to export those excess stockpiles, effectively forcing Iran to halt enrichment or ignore the limits, which it is now doing.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran declares that at the current stage, it does not any more see itself committed to respecting the limitations on keeping enriched uranium and heavy water reserves," Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) said in a statement carried by the semi-official Fars news agency.

On Twitter, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said that the country was stopping measures that Washington "has made impossible to continue."

"Our action is within the terms of (the deal)," said Zarif adding that the other signatories had "a narrowing window to reverse this."

Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has always maintained that its nuclear research is purely civilian in nature.

The announcement puts European signatories to the agreement in a delicate position -- either side with the Trump administration and walk away from the deal, or preserve the pact by caving in to Iranian calls to ease restrictions on banking and oil trade, despite the threat of US sanctions.

Over the weekend, the European countries again criticized the Trump administration's re-imposition of sanctions, and said Iran had continued to comply with the terms of the deal.

The Kremlin also placed the blame for Iran's partial withdrawal on Washington's "ill-conceived steps" to pressure Tehran, spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said during a Wednesday press briefing.

The deal with Iran was widely hailed as a major diplomatic victory by Barack Obama's administration, but one that was immediately criticized by his successor.

Last year, US President Donald Trump withdrew his country from the deal, saying it was "defective at its core" and reimposing sanctions. Since then, anti-Iran hawks within his administration, particularly Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, have been ramping up pressure on Tehran.

This week, Pompeo made a surprise visit to Iran's neighbor Iraq, where he accused Tehran of making military moves, including transporting short- and medium-range ballistic missiles aboard boats in the Persian Gulf, much of which falls within Iranian territorial waters or the country's Exclusive Economic Zone.

Speaking to reporters, Pompeo said he discussed the "threat stream we had seen" from Iran and stressed "the importance of Iraq ensuring that it's able to adequately protect Americans in their country."

The US Defense Department is now considering sending additional firepower to the region, including anti-missile defense systems, according to several US officials with knowledge of the situation.

Pompeo is a proponent of a "maximum pressure" approach to Iran, and in the past has appeared to support regime change in Tehran, such as in a speech last year in which he said the goal of the US was "to get the Iranian regime to behave like a normal nation."

Since then, the US has reintroduced all nuclear-related sanctions among a slew of other punitive measures. In the past month, it has moved to cut off Iran's oil revenues, its chief source of foreign income, put curbs on its civilian nuclear work, and designated Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite military group with deep political and economic influence, as a terrorist entity.

Officially titled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, the nuclear deal was intended to limit Iran's civilian energy program -- thereby preventing it from developing nuclear weapons at some point in the future -- in exchange for relief from sanctions that were crippling the Iranian economy.

The deal was struck in Vienna following two years of intensive talks orchestrated by the Obama administration. It was signed by Iran and six other nations in 2015 -- the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany. The accord was also enshrined in a UN Security Council resolution, making it international law.

Under the deal, the Iranian government agreed to three key things:

Reducing the number of its centrifuges by two-thirds (centrifuges are tube-shaped machines used to enrich uranium, the material necessary for nuclear power); slashing its stockpile of enriched uranium by 98%; and capping uranium enrichment at 3.67% -- enough to continue powering parts of the country's energy needs, but not enough to ever build a nuclear bomb.

In addition, Iran was required to limit uranium research and development, and allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) certain access to its civilian nuclear facilities.

In return for its compliance, all nuclear-related sanctions on Iran were lifted in January 2016, reconnecting the country's stagnating economy with international markets.

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday invoked executive privilege concerning the full, unredacted report from special counsel Robert Mueller just as Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler, were voting to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for not turning over the unredacted report and underlying materials in response to a committee subpoena.

"Faced with Chairman Nadler’s blatant abuse of power, and at the Attorney General’s request, the President has no other option than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

"It is sad that Chairman Nadler is only interested in pandering to the press and pleasing his radical left constituency. The American people deserve a Congress that is focused on solving real problems like the crisis at the border, high prescription drug prices, our country’s crumbling infrastructure, and so much more,” Sanders said.

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Aren't they all? Really not into politics because everyone who you can vote for is working on his weird little agenda

just find the agenda that might do the least harm. all the goons in charge currently should be fucking guillotined. and there's plenty on the left who double deal and have conflicts of interest and bow to corporations.

i think some politicians are noble people trying to work for the common good. none of them are boy scouts.. they all make hard choices sooner or later and i'm sure have a difficult time w/some of the compromises. and some play a long game and try to balance the scales over a career in public service.

but many of them are shills. it's basically a path to riches. a way to game the system to their advantage. there's a reason that many people in congress are lawyers of some kind.. it's so they can write the rules so that only lawyers can understand them.

there are some people w/integrity but they're often crushed.

america is srt of a place that is detached from itself and its history. mostly what survives is myth and dreams. we're going to be outpaced by china soon. they will be the dominant power. USA still has the biggest economy but that won't last. this country doesn't have like a 50 year plan or anything.

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give no shelter to the idea that "all news is lies" etc. we need to help people navigate the modern information warfare environment. bad actors have jammed the information channels, leaving a populace confused and disaffected. this may not go away. these people need us to tell them to start watching maddow or melber or whoever you think is good.

Edited May 9 by very honest

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oof. john bolton has wanted to wipe out iran for ages. he's gotta be pushing trump on all this shit w/iran. trying to goad iran into giving them some made up bullshit cause to invade or fire off some missiles or some shit. wtf.

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Intelligence and military officials in Europe as well as in the United States said that over the past year, most aggressive moves have originated not in Tehran, but in Washington — where John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, has prodded President Trump into backing Iran into a corner.

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Chomsky always blows my mind. the flatness of his assertions and his take on it all.. just been doing it for his whole life. telling it like he sees it and usually that's how it is.

regarding russia though... there's something there. the social media manipulation hacking voter rolls in multiple places.. but i agree chomsky puts it into scale properly. our democracy has been manipulated for so long we take it for granted and accept the big money as part of the equation.

i'm glad there's people who dedicate their lives to active involvement in democracy and attempting to make the playing field level.. transparency etc. but at some point it seems like tilting at windmills.

ugh. depressing. seems smarter to not pay attention accept for voting.. and then just putting your head down and making art or whatever. i wish i could tune it out and work on music. there's bad shows about aliens on tv too.

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So does anyone know if anything is going to happen to Trump about ANYTHING? I never really pay attention to all these controversies on him because nothing ever happens and he keeps winning and it simply frustrates me when I think about it too long. And him losing by going to jail after his presidency is over is not a win in my book.

3 hours ago, ignatius said:

Chomsky always blows my mind. the flatness of his assertions and his take on it all.. just been doing it for his whole life. telling it like he sees it and usually that's how it is.

regarding russia though... there's something there. the social media manipulation hacking voter rolls in multiple places.. but i agree chomsky puts it into scale properly. our democracy has been manipulated for so long we take it for granted and accept the big money as part of the equation.

i'm glad there's people who dedicate their lives to active involvement in democracy and attempting to make the playing field level.. transparency etc. but at some point it seems like tilting at windmills.

ugh. depressing. seems smarter to not pay attention accept for voting.. and then just putting your head down and making art or whatever. i wish i could tune it out and work on music. there's bad shows about aliens on tv too.

I agree, his ability to reason and see through the noise for the essence of something is enviable. He also has the perspective of someone who's been around for 90 years and is still able to analyze what's currently going on and put it into perspective of the bigger picture.

Sometimes I feel like the US is in this huge 40 or 50 year time loop when it comes to politics. There's this almost palpable feeling like "we're getting something accomplished" but both the liberal and conservatives ideals are 90-95%% the same as they were in the 1970s, and conservatives are basically the same except somewhat crazier due to the Republican establishment feeding their minds garbage for decades, culminating in Trump. Hell, the overton window for both sides has shifted right according to lots of people who were alive in the 50s and 60s.

So that so called palpable feeling feels largely like an illusion in that context, and as you say it's depressing and makes it seem like a better idea to not pay attention to any of it until election day because you need to keep your blood pressure from getting too high.

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So does anyone know if anything is going to happen to Trump about ANYTHING? I never really pay attention to all these controversies on him because nothing ever happens and he keeps winning and it simply frustrates me when I think about it too long. And him losing by going to jail after his presidency is over is not a win in my book.﻿

If you get your Trump news from this thread, he's going to get impeached ANY DAY NOW and deserves it for 10 million things. Reality is its very very unlikely he's going to jail, even if he gets 'impeached' so don't expect it to happen, even after he's out as president (remember, he'd be a martyr to ~30% of the voters even after he's out of office. also he's filthy fucking rich, in case anyone's forgotten. how often do the rich go to jail?)

4 hours ago, Brisbot said:

Sometimes I feel like the US is in this huge 40 or 50 year time loop when it comes to politics. There's this almost palpable feeling like "we're getting something accomplished" but both the liberal and conservatives ideals are 90-95%% the same as they were in the 1970s, and conservatives are basically the same except somewhat crazier due to the Republican establishment feeding their minds garbage for decades, culminating in Trump. Hell, the overton window for both sides has shifted right according to lots of people who were alive in the 50s and 60s.

So that so called palpable feeling feels largely like an illusion in that context, and as you say it's depressing and makes it seem like a better idea to not pay attention to any of it until election day because you need to keep your blood pressure from getting too high.﻿

It's almost designed to go in cycles, but the problem is the cycles have been 99% hijacked by the Republican and Democratic parties. Their grip on EVERYTHING regarding politics in this country is disgusting and honestly probably the biggest issue right now. The dichotomy they've created is absolutely not necessary and is needs to be burned to the fucking ground.

Edited May 16 by auxien

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It's almost designed to go in cycles, but the problem is the cycles have been 99% hijacked by the Republican and Democratic parties. Their grip on EVERYTHING regarding politics in this country is disgusting and honestly probably the biggest issue right now. The dichotomy they've created is absolutely not necessary and is needs to be burned to the fucking ground.

It feels like the cycles wait until memory fades well enough. It's ridiculous how many people haven't figured out that Republican and Democratic politicians, at least the ones that make it high up in the food chain, are largely the same but pretend to have different opinions on social issues.

There's this narrative I am critical of that the country is slowly becoming little more left wing over time and right wingers are old disconnected people slowly dying off , but the most left wing the country has ever been in terms of policy and not with social issues, was what... 90 years ago with the New Deal? Though the country is more left wing policy wise now in other ways that aren't as important.

These days In America I owe $6000 to the ER because I blacked out randomly one day and I had no insurance. They didn't do anything except some blood tests, gave me fluids I didn't need, did that thing where they look at your heart. I was there for an hour. They determined nothing was wrong and that I may have stood up too fast or something, and billed me for every last thing. Turns out I had mild heart arrhythmia issues but I didn't figure that out till later with a specialist who cost an eighth of the price.

Now I'm getting letters saying they want more than my $10 a month payment and will sue me if I don't comply. What the f**k America 😞